The Los Angeles Unified School District has taken many wrong turns over the last few decades. Last week, finally, it took a right turn toward what could lead to an education renaissance in Los Angeles.

Surprisingly, nearly all of the members of the LAUSD’s Board of Education voted to approve a controversial – and startlingly innovative – proposal by board Vice President Yolie Flores Aguilar to allow outside operators to compete with the district for the right to run 50 new schools and many underperforming ones.

Why this is surprising is because in recent years, the school board has lacked any real backbone when it came to adopting honest reform measures. This was due mainly to the power of the political unions and the L.A. establishment, hoping to squash any action that might limit their powers, and the near-complete disconnection of the community from the schools.

We applaud the school board members for having the courage to stand up to opposition. This measure puts educational choices back in the hands of the community, which is where they always belonged.

But while this is a hopeful development, it is hardly a panacea for local education. Charter schools are not the solution to but a symptom of the long illness of public education in Los Angeles and California.

Nor does the resolution represent a takeover by charter schools, as the opposition has characterized it. Certainly, getting a chance to compete with a bloated and clumsy public school district could be a boon for charter operators that don’t have an enormous and convoluted bureaucracy and angry special interests on their backs.

However, it’s fair to say that charter schools were already in the process of taking over schools. Decades of failing to address parent concerns and deal with falling student achievement had prompted an exodus of students from traditional schools to charters and private schools. Over the last five years, at least, LAUSD has started each school year with significantly fewer students – and not all of those were dropouts.

In other words, an unsanctioned, but purely organic takeover was – and is – already in the works.

The schools choice plan opens the doors to anyone with a good academic plan – including and especially LAUSD. Hopefully, this will prompt the district to rise to the challenge to improve education. Competition in any arena is healthy and productive. Any student can tell you that.